Labour leader Ed Miliband pledged a crusade for better living standards and higher wages yesterday.

In a speech at London's Battersea Power Station, Mr Miliband tore into service providers, money lenders and tight-fisted employers for their rampant profiteering.

But with a double-edged sword, he espoused the belief that capitalist markets can "work for working people."

Mr Miliband declared: "We can run Britain in a different way, different from the past.

"Where ordinary people feel the country is run for them, in their interests."

The cost of living crisis gripping the country would not be solved simply by average wages creeping higher than prices.

"For people to be genuinely better off, we have to do much better than that," he said.

The link between economic growth and living standards must be permanently restored for Britain's working people.

In his speech Mr Miliband lambasted the "big six" energy companies for increasing retail prices by an average of 10.4 per cent a year since 2011, while wholesale price rises had averaged 1.6 per cent.

Over half the price increases had gone straight into the companies' profits.

He argued that "tackling the cost of living crisis is also about ensuring markets work for working people."

A Labour government would freeze energy prices until 2017 to pave the way for a radical change in the way the energy market worked, providing a better deal for consumers and "long-term confidence" for investors.

"And we will mend other markets that aren't working in the public interest," he said.

"Opening up competition in banking, a cap on the cost of credit in payday lending, bringing in a proper cap on train fare increases, ending unjustified charges and fees in the private rented sector, and introducing a duty on water companies to have social tariffs to help the poorest families."

Mr Miliband bitterly condemned the "low pay emergency in this country," with over five million people paid less than the living wage of £8.80 an hour in London and £7.65 elsewhere.

A Labour government would "strengthen" the existing £6.31 minimum wage, and offer "make work pay" contracts to employers who sign up to pay the living wage.

Companies would receive a tax rebate averaging £445 for each low-paid member of staff whose earnings are boosted.